Municipal waste incineration is well established for waste management and disposal, and is also capable of providing an energy source. Incineration combustion byproducts, including of non-combustibles such as glass and concrete, partially burned and unburned materials, and metals—ferrous and non-ferrous, and ash is presently landfilled. Due to the high impurity of untreated or minimally process incineration ash, accepting landfills must be environmentally secure. Increasing environmental regulations and restriction on landfill material directly impact incinerator operations and capacity. With increasing amounts of waste incineration byproduct requiring disposal, standards of performance for municipal solid waste landfills place further restrictions and requirements on the exact content of such material.
Ash material from waste combustors, or incineration ash, which may also include municipal or some residual waste systems currently are landfilled. Some facilities remove ferrous metals from ash utilizing drum magnets. Fewer facilities also remove non-ferrous metals, but even those facilities that do make an attempt to remove ferrous and non-ferrous do not capture all the metals within the ash. The fine wet ash material sticks to the metals, especially small metal pieces, and binds traditional separation equipment. Additionally, the only byproducts produced from the prior processes are only the metals. The residual material is landfilled. Impurities in landfilled waste ash material, such as metals and other ferrous and non-ferrous particles, present a problem for compliance with increasingly strict environmental controls on landfill ash. Mass or material balance analysis has not heretofore been applied to management of incineration ash.